


it's in a blueprint of your soul

by winterbottom



Series: “bonnie lives” post-series [1]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: F/F, Hospitals, Suicidal Thoughts, frank is mentioned and vaguely discussed but despite my Fight Club feelings he doesn't look great, i mean bonnie is just kind of being herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29212581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbottom/pseuds/winterbottom
Summary: Even when they fought — even when she was wishing her dead, believing she meant it— she showed up. Bonnie always, always came back to her, and even when she was unwelcome, she was never a surprise. Never wholly unwanted.in an ideal world, the perfect summary would be "after the shooting, except it's good", but i'm realistic.
Relationships: Annalise Keating & Bonnie Winterbottom, Annalise Keating/Bonnie Winterbottom, Annalise Keating/Tegan Price
Series: “bonnie lives” post-series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148426
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	it's in a blueprint of your soul

**Author's Note:**

> i got tired of crying about how i'd have handled bonnie, so i guess i'm probably just gonna throw a fit and write a series about it. be gentle with me; it's been a thousand years since my last coherent thought.

For as long as she can remember, Bonnie’s practiced death, and with such fervor it might seem artistic — but it’s practical, even mundane, for her. A matter of having an exit from every room. Ideally, she can improvise; where there are no other options, she can simply cease being, and it’s not morbid to her, not violent or hateful: it’s sometimes all that makes life bearable. She wouldn't consider herself suicidal most days, even if it's often spite keeping her afloat.

Covered in Frank’s blood, though, it’s tempting: it would be so easy, she thinks, to follow him. To take it on faith that Annalise is safe and that love still surrounds her, with or without the two of them there. But Bonnie is mistrustful of shortcuts: if something seems too good to be true, that's because it is. There’s only ever been one exception, and she’s here on these steps, holding her like a child, saying all she’s ever wanted to hear. _I need you_. _I need you._

She's mortified she's hijacked the camera crews: Bonnie hates being filmed, anyway, but it's a private ordeal, her near-death experience. She realizes she's a distraction, and that they'd risk dying themselves if they tried continuing the interview, but she'd rather not be immortalized like this: it's Annalise's day. It's Annalise's first day of relative peace in possibly her entire life, and she's bleeding all over it. The least they could do is turn away, make it easier to clean up the record. Forget she was ever here.

It's adrenaline, she guesses, but she missed the impact. It's all rather anticlimactic, on her end. She wants to see Frank, because she wants to believe that she's wrong, that what just happened was somehow a misunderstanding: that even if he's destroyed his life, he still has one, because their world without him is unthinkable. She loses time, but when she reaches for Annalise in the ambulance, she's there, ready for her hand and begging her to stay, and it's all wrong because she shouldn't have to do that. She is never, ever supposed to have to do that. Bonnie is not the one who leaves.

At the hospital, they slit her open and root around for shrapnel and she’s glad for the gore, grateful for lasting proof of what's happened, of how she feels. Outsides to match her insides. A line to separate her from Frank, from the life she almost made, from the one he gave up because he was too much like her — Bonnie will probably forgive him and she knows she'll always love him, but she's tired of taking his leftovers. Somehow, even after all they've been through, she's ended up being collateral damage: she didn't even get her own bullet.

* * *

She doesn’t think about God, because all He ever offered her was shame, and she’s never been able to carry more. She didn’t find faith in prison and didn't even turn to prayer before her trial, but she’s praying after: pleading like she's Anna Mae, who still had hope, to anyone who might listen. She’s already paid so much that she never owed, never asked for.

Tegan shows up halfway through hour one and sits next to her, reporting matter-of-factly that she’s filled in Ophelia and Celestine and they know she’s okay. _Okay_. As if that’s on the table. Annalise tries to thank her, but she isn’t sure her voice works, so it's just as possible she only imagines it.

“You don’t have to stay.” It seems cruel after the talk they had earlier, after Tegan’s confession, but she won’t tell her to go. Selfish or not, she lets her hold her hand, grounds herself in the contact, in the presence of another body. For a long moment, there’s only silence, and then:

“Who is she?” She doesn’t sound any way, other than curious, and Annalise’s own lack of reaction disarms her. She doesn’t get defensive, and she doesn’t deflect with a joke: she just sits there, slumped against the wall. And because she can’t focus on anything else — and anyway, she’d hate herself more if she did — Annalise answers the best way she can, thinking if, God forbid... there’s no one who knows. There’s no one left who understands, and what’s worse than a world without Bonnie? A world that won’t even remember her.

“In ‘04 I was with a firm I hated, making a name for myself on the clients nobody took. ‘Soulless’, mostly, is what they called me. And I was proud of that, because I just wanted to win.”

“Until Bonnie.” It’s a complicated story, but not an uncommon one, in their line of work. They all have cases they wish they hadn’t taken and Tegan hired Bonnie, once: she’s done her homework, unearthed most of even what Annalise, presumably, tried to bury.

All she can do is nod.

“The client was a politician, rep already shot to hell, and they thought I stood more a chance on assault charges. But what I did to her was...” There aren’t words, she knows, for what she did to Bonnie on the stand. ‘Unconscionable’, maybe, comes close. “I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I didn’t even sleep. Sam was — he noticed. Took an interest. I thought we could help her, or thought I could... make her what I should’ve been. Might’ve been, if I’d had...”

If she hadn’t cut herself off from everyone and everything who made her feel too much. If she hadn’t forgotten that she had wanted to do good, and not just do well for herself, not just be the best.

“I resigned, and I tracked her down at work, told her I’d take care of everything. Gave her a room in the house. Did you know she was my first intern?”

“No.” Tegan’s expression is unreadable, the line of her mouth taut, but wary of smiling. She squeezes Annalise’s hand, encouraging her to keep talking.

“I didn’t think she’d actually show up, and... she knew that, and so she did. Just to call my bluff.”

“There’s a shock,” Tegan says drily, “she’s as stubborn as you are.”

“No,” huffs Annalise, her lips twitching upward, “no, she’s worse.”

(She couldn’t love her more if she were her own child.)

“So you took her in. You and Sam.”

The initial reply is only a hum in the back of Annalise’s throat.

“We’d been trying for a baby a few years, but I didn’t want IVF. Sam was pissed, and it had been a while since the last miscarriage, and Bonnie was alone — I thought maybe just having company might help. Be a good distraction. For all of us.”

Tegan notes, of course, how she still negates her own kindness, habitually makes ‘nothing’ out of something when it’s not entirely selfless. She wants to tell her it doesn’t matter, but there’s a time and a place for that. Somewhere with less blood on her suit.

“She’d been with us about a year when we lost our son, and I just couldn’t — deal with anyone else. Wouldn’t. I wouldn’t’ve — I overdosed on sleeping pills, few weeks after I came home. Somehow Bonnie got me to and from the ER, and Sam never even knew I’d left the house.”

“Your husband, the therapist,” she can’t help but comment, head shaking in disbelief, and Annalise has the distant thought that maybe she should laugh; maybe she wants to, or maybe it’s just life catching up to her. The past three years taking their toll.

“Count on him,” she says instead, “to see what he wanted, not a lot else. But he was grieving, too, I guess.”

Tegan thinks that seems charitable, true or not, but she’s still learning how to navigate these waters and she never actually met the man, and so she stays quiet.

“You were a family.”

Annalise nods, eyes drifting shut, and rests her head against the cool wall. It takes a minute for her to remember to answer.

“The four of us.” She doesn’t need to specify who she’s picturing now, clear as day, and she doesn’t want to hear his name before she has to, so she cuts around it. She doesn’t have the luxury of feeling, with or without the bottle. Not yet. “Still had her room upstairs when the house burned. Never got rid of her for good.”

Even when they fought — even when she was wishing her dead, believing she meant it— she showed up. Bonnie always, always came back to her, and even when she was unwelcome, she was never a surprise. Never wholly unwanted. 

“You weren’t together?”

“Not like it seems,” Annalise indulges, but the spark of laughter in her voice fades as quickly as it comes. “Don't think there's a word for that.” She enjoys the ambiguity, most days: that what they have is safe between them, unable to be discussed — much less comprehended — by anyone else. That she and Bonnie belong inherently _to_ one another, not _with_ one another. Today, that’s somewhat less consolation.

_Stay with me. I need you. Stay with me. Stay._

* * *

_Wake up._

Annalise is cleaning the blood from her hands, scraping at her nails with a warm washcloth, and that strikes her as dangerously near funny. She drifts off again, wishing she had a use for her horrible little metaphors.

_Wake up._

She doesn't like doctors and she's a terrible patient, so when she hears talk of her operation, her recovery, she opts out. She's never had anesthesia before, but she's nothing if not opportunistic.

_Wake up._

Tegan drops off an overnight bag for Annalise and she tells her Bonnie looks good, which she thinks is generous, even if it's just because she almost died. She'd normally eavesdrop, but now lets them off the hook.

_Wake up._

She'd rather not, at the moment, but she can't sleep anymore, and she's being an awful host: the least she can do is tell her she's okay, even though they both know it isn't true.

"Annalise," Bonnie says, _I need you_.


End file.
